Val d'Allos/Espace Lumière, FR: 02/09/18

This TR is a fair amount of travelogue but that's part of the Europe experience -- getting to a destination and the surrounding activities are as important as the skiing, especially in this part of the Alps with so much history tied to it being in the sunny and rugged south of France. For my final stop on this trip, I headed northwest from Valberg to the Val d'Allos or Allos Valley -- only 18 miles as the crow flies, but an almost two-hour drive, which takes you through stunning landscapes:




You start out going through scenic Daluis Gorge, something that wouldn't look out of place in southern Utah with its red-rock topography popular for kayaking, hiking, and rappelling. Between the twisting two-lane road and the blinding mid-morning sun, I wasn't able to take any convincing pix, so here are a couple from Wikipedia Commons:





A half hour later, the road starts gaining elevation and passes by a few more 1,000-year-old cliffside villages. As you can imagine, each one has a unique story.





A group of five-year-olds learning nordic skiing as part of a class outing -- why don't we do that here?





Lunch at a local restaurant with the requisite fresh bread and house pooch, a Great Pyrenees sheep dog. I'd never heard of this breed but it's apparently well-known amongst dog lovers:







There, I met local Eric, who gave me a quick tour of Peyresq, a cliffside village a couple minutes away:











Earlier at the restaurant, I tried this fantastic local beer and learned that the brewery was just outside town and gave tours, so I headed over to Brasserie Cordoeil. Something I'd noticed over the previous few days was that younger French people/millennials weren't all necessarily wine lovers or experts and that many were passionate craft beer drinkers.

For some reason, I always expect breweries to be dark, musty, wooden places, but this place looked and felt more like a laboratory: very high-tech and unbelievably clean -- you could literally eat off the floor. Founder Boris Pougnet did a great job explaining the nuts and bolts of how he created his tasty brews. He's an engineer by trade, which you could tell by the precision in his explanations (photos by Eric Olive).









Followed by the obligatory tasting of the product:





The next day, I arrived at the largest ski area on this trip, Val d"Allos, which covers 220km/136 miles of marked trails and large amounts of offpiste that you wouldn't guess from the map:



On Day 1, I skied at Seignus (SAYN YEWSS), which could easily be connected to the main Val d'Allos circuit, but they left it separate as a local's area, very similar to how Pico is to Killington. 3,000 verts of consistent double-blue/single-black pitch.







It's known mainly as a high-speed cruising type of ski area but there were plenty of well-preserved leftovers -- the skier in most of these photos is local Anasthasia, who did a great job showing me around the slopes:





Only one drag lift, on the skier's right:



The signature run is a top-to-bottom trail on the far skier's left -- you're supposed to try to clean the whole thing without stopping but I needed a break about halfway down:









A late lunch at the mid-mountain restaurant closed out my introduction to this region with the larger circuit planned for the following day:

Just wow!!!!

Looks like more then just a ski holiday, looks like the year round outdoor activities are endless. Is there a high season for the region in terms of crowds?

I really need to start taking longer ski trips to interesting places.  It’s so cool how you not only sample the skiing goods, but also interact with the surrounding communities, taking full advantage of the culture and atmosphere.  Well done!

JasonWx wrote

Is there a high season for the region in terms of crowds?

For skiing, it's the French school holidays from the second week of Feb to early March and during the summer, August, when the entire country goes on vacation.

JTG4eva! wrote

I really need to start taking longer ski trips to interesting places.  It’s so cool how you not only sample the skiing goods, but also interact with the surrounding communities, taking full advantage of the culture and atmosphere. Well done!

Thanks! When you say "longer trips," you mean more than three or four days? Many people think that my seven- or eight-day trips to the Alps are too short and that ten days is a minimum.

I still do trips where it's virtually all skiing but yeah, much better when you can hang out with locals and learn background on the region. For a country the size of Texas, France has an amazing amount of variety: Alps/Pyrenees (not the same thing culturally or topographically), the dry southern California-ish inland south, ocean/beaches on the Mediterranean and Atlantic, New England-ish climate in Brittany, wine country, etc.

I mean more than two or three days!  I really need to get the wife and kids to go with me, and spend longer.  Of course if I wait for that to happen........

Would be nice to be able to do more than ski/eat/crash though.

Next trip is two days in Zermatt, one day skiing, one day in town.  Side trip on our visit to see our daughter who is studying in the Netherlands this semester.

JTG...I would ski 2 days...You don't need a full day for the town...A evening stroll after dinner is enough..
Still want to send pics..



James is there a summer mountain biking scene?

JasonWx wrote

James is there a summer mountain biking scene?

Huge. Just like everywhere else, ski regions are going all out to attract summer crowds/revenue and every single ski area I visited offered extensive lift-served/x-c mtb with big infrastructure investments. You saw the previous TR with the village offering rental electric mtb.

Never been to Zermatt but I agree with Jason: two ski days.

JasonWx wrote

JTG...I would ski 2 days...You don't need a full day for the town...A evening stroll after dinner is enough..

Well, that’s the good thing about NOT traveling with my wife on ski vacations, if it was just me I would ski two days!  Maybe I can work the second day in, but I’ll have to be delicate about it....

JTG4eva! wrote

Maybe I can work the second day in, but I’ll have to be delicate about it....

Get her a halfday spa treatment in Zurich. Best money you'll ever spend.

Never guessed that the south of France looked like that!

As always, thank you for taking the time to put together these trip reports. They no doubt will come in handy when I'm some day able to explore the Alps. Cheers!

For the final day of this trip, I checked out the large circuit known as the Espace Lumière, which doesn't translate well into English: basically, the Region of Light -- referring to how sunny this area is year round. It includes 180 km/108 miles of trails and an impressive amount and quality of offpiste, divided into two sectors: La Foux on the looker's left and Pra Loup (wolf's meadow) on the right.








The 3,600-vert runs on Pra Loup ski nice and long:





... before ending at the ski village with the Ubaye Valley in the background along with the town of Barcelonnette, which is known for having a huge Mexican Festival in August. Apparently, quite a few residents left for Mexico in the late 1800s, became successful entrepreneurs over there, and eventually moved home, bringing a lot of Latino cultural influences.



Heading back to the La Foux sector:









Stopping for lunch at the self-service Parapente restaurant. I noticed quite a few stickers from California ski areas (notice the one from Kirkwood in the window). Reportedly, the owner's son had spent time in the Tahoe region and came back inspired.





Being France, even cafeterias have a comparatively high quality of cuisine -- look at the dessert lineup on the top shelves:



You know you're in the south of France when you see a truck like this in a ski-area parking lot -- a company that cares for  palm trees:



Heading back into the village with the requisite old church:







And a visit to the locally famous Sainte Brigitte cheese dairy. You're not supposed to bring unpasteurized cheese into the U.S., but I managed to sneak some in, despite the pungent aroma:







On my final evening, I went with local food connoisseur Robin to a cute traditional French restaurant. I had a vegetarian version of the beloved winter dish tartiflette and he opted for a heaping plate of charcuterie.



With that, another great Alps trip is in the books.

The euros know how to do food...the cafeterias are almost worth  the trip....Back home I don't eat any 4 legged animals..When I'm there , I can't resist ..

JasonWx wrote

The euros know how to do food...the cafeterias are almost worth  the trip....Back home I don't eat any 4 legged animals..When I'm there , I can't resist ..

I have to admit that looks amazing. Another great report.
Thank you

Thanks all.

Forgot to mention that one of the weird things on Alps trips is that I very rarely see wild animals other than birds; however, down south there are lots of critters. No surprise that the ski sector is called Pra Loup/"wolf meadow" -- twice, grown wolves walked across the road in front of me and I also saw a VW-sized wild boar with the tusks and everything. According to locals, the wolves generally mind their own business; it's the boars you need to watch out for, given how they love to dig and burrow, causing damage to gardens and farming areas.